Heikki Kovalainen is looking for Caterham to move into the midfield, according to his new management company.

Having handled his own career in the wake of Flavio Briatore’s demise, Finn Kovalainen recently signed up with IMG, the sports and entertainment management giant.

The 30-year-old has rebuilt his reputation since 2010 in the wake of mixed tenures for top teams Renault and McLaren.

According to IMG Motorsport’s head of clients Martin Anayi, Kovalainen is now regarded by formula one team bosses up and down pitlane as among the top best drivers.

“He is a great guy,” Anayi is quoted by Finland’s Turun Sanomat newspaper.

“Heikki’s potential is obvious and he definitely wants to succeed.”

There have been rumblings in the paddock that Kovalainen is disappointed that, despite being consistently the best of F1′s new teams since 2010, Caterham is yet to break into the midfield.

“This is only the team’s third season, so there are still some growing paints,” IMG’s Anayi acknowledged.

“Heikki has a strong desire to compete, and not just with his teammate Vitaly Petrov. The team’s boss Tony Fernandes wants to get in with the middle group.

“This means that the team needs to regularly get into the Q2 stage of qualifying and in the race be aiming for the points,” he insisted.

Kimi Raikkonen has admitted his failed negotiations with Williams ultimately turned out for the better.

When he decided to try to return to F1 this year, the 2007 world champion negotiated at length with Williams.

When those talks faltered, he turned to his second option, and quickly came to agreement with the former Renault team Lotus.

The Enstone based team has been the surprise of the 2012 season so far, and in Barcelona Finn Raikkonen is arguably the overall favourite.

He was asked by Turun Sanomat newspaper if the performance of Lotus, his only actual option for a race seat this year, has surprised him.

“Well, I had another option,” said the 32-year-old, referring to Williams.

“It’s hard to say what kind of results I would have had with Williams. They would have been pretty good as well but perhaps not quite as strong as we are doing now,” said Raikkonen, who finished second in Bahrain recently.

He said he has not been surprised.

“Last year (as Renault) they weren’t bad at the start of the season,” said the former Ferrari and McLaren driver.

“But they had decided to put the exhaust at the front of the car and were not then able to develop the way they needed.”

Heikki Kovalainen has admitted some disappointment about Caterham’s progress in 2012.

In its third season of formula one, and despite being clearly more impressive than its direct rivals Marussia and HRT, the Tony Fernandes-led team intended to take a step forwards this year.

Caterham took some upgrades to the Mugello test last week, but according to Finnish sources Turun Sanomat and MTV3, not all of them worked.

“The car has a pretty good balance, but the lap times are not good enough,” Finnish driver Kovalainen is quoted as saying.

“It’s good to drive but it’s just too slow,” he insisted.

“We did not get all the updates to work as we had hoped, so in Spain we have only some things that are new,” added Kovalainen.

The team is yet to score a point.

Statistically, the Chinese grand prix raced straight into the history books as one of the most exciting formula one events of all time.

“For me, we are having some of the best races in formula one history,” agreed Jenson Button after finishing Sunday’s Shanghai race behind Nico Rosberg.

Finland’s Turun Sanomat newspaper reports that only three grands prix in the history of the sport played host to more individual overtaking moves.

The report said there were 72 passes in total on Sunday, not including the first corner of the race. Seven of the moves were on Kimi Raikkonen on one lap, after the Lotus driver’s Pirelli tyres gave up the ghost.

Last year in Shanghai, there were 63 passes. So far in 2012, there were more overtaking moves in China, Malaysia and Australia compared to the same races last season.

Canada 2011 still stands as the site of the most passes during a single grand prix, at 89.

In second place are the 1983 US grand prix and the 2011 Turkish grand prix (79 passes), followed by China last weekend.

McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh is celebrating the spectacle of the 2012 season so far.

“Who’s going to predict who will win?” he said, referring to this weekend’s grand prix in Bahrain. “I won’t.

“We’ve had three very different races and I think we are going to have potentially 20 very different races this year.”

The 2012 season has kicked off promisingly, with more overtaking moves recorded in the first two races than in the same exciting period last year.

The finding is significant, given the highly lauded contribution early in 2011 made by the new passing aid ‘DRS’, and new official supplier Pirelli’s heavily-degrading tyres.

Finland’s Turun Sanomat newspaper said 2012 has so far broken even the all-time records of early last season, when there were 63 overtaking moves – excluding the first laps – in Australia and Malaysia 2011.

This year, there were 70 passes in Australia-Malaysia combined.

It bodes well for this weekend’s Chinese grand prix, after last year’s Shanghai race saw no fewer than 63 separate in-race overtakes, including Lewis Hamilton’s winning move on leader Sebastian Vettel.

“China proved to be one of the most fascinating races in our first year, so we have a tough act to follow,” said Pirelli’s Paul Hembery.

“However, the philosophy we have adopted this year actually extends the window of peak performance on the slick tyres, which means that the drivers should be able to race harder and closer,” he added.

Yet another factor at the 2012 Chinese grand prix could be the weather, with F1′s travellers already sampling wet Shanghai roads early this week.

That forecast would suit Malaysia winner Ferrari, with technical director Pat Fry admitting that the Italian team’s 2012 car is almost a second off the pace in the dry.

“Damp, low grip conditions suit our car and flatter some of the issues we have at the moment,” he said.

Tony Fernandes has given a strident defence of his formula one team, Caterham.

The former Team Lotus outfit, headed by the cheery Malaysian entrepreneur Fernandes, entered its third season with high hopes it was set to join the midfield mix.

Instead, the green cars – whilst still the cream of the backmarker group – are still better only than fellow stragglers Marussia and HRT.

The Finnish broadcaster MTV3′s well-known analyst Mika Salo has advised lead driver Heikki Kovalainen to therefore quit Caterham at the end of 2012.

“Something has been wrong with the car,” Kovalainen is quoted as saying by Turun Sanomat newspaper this week. “We need to see what is not right.”

Fernandes, meanwhile, is looking fervently on the bright side, insisting Caterham has done markedly better than F1′s other 2010 start-ups.

“We are competitive,” he told the Sun, reminding that Caterham was the last 2010 team given its official entry by the FIA a few years ago.

“We’ve blown away Marussia and HRT when in actual fact they have been there six months longer,” insisted Fernandes.

“We are half a second away from the established midfield … you must remember that this team is only two years old.

“When I started, we were nine seconds away from the front. Last year we were about four seconds away from Red Bull.

“This year, on certain laps, we lapped at the same pace as them. So I am very happy and I am strengthening the team all the time,” he added.

But one of Caterham’s direct rivals, HRT, is looking to make a major step forwards this weekend in China, having struggled recently in the wake of team supremo Colin Kolles’ departure.

“We come into this grand prix having had much more time to prepare the cars,” Pedro de la Rosa is quoted by the Spanish news agency EFE.

“We will bring small improvements to China but what we really need is the cars back in Europe and then the team can concentrate at the (new headquarters) Caja Magica.

“Step by step we will improve,” said the Spanish driver.

Bruno Senna will give up his race car to Williams test driver Valtteri Bottas on fourteen more occasions in 2012.
It has emerged that, every time young Finn Bottas takes to the track on a Friday this season, it will be at the wheel of Senna’s Renault-powered FW34.

“Pastor Maldonado will keep his car in every session,” Turun Sanomat correspondent Heikki Kulta reported.

Brazilian Senna confirmed the news to British Sky television whilst he sat out Friday’s initial running in Malaysia.

Bottas, 22, was just quicker than the British team’s number one driver Maldonado on Friday.

 From the depths of 2011, Williams is now ‘not far’ from the pace of F1′s strongest teams.
That is the claim of Pastor Maldonado, who in the newly Renault-powered and Mike Coughlan-designed FW34 qualified eighth and was pushing Fernando Alonso for fifth in the race when he crashed out of Sunday’s season opener in Melbourne on the last lap.

It indicated a major turnaround for the formerly championship-winning team that collapsed to a dismal ninth place in last year’s points standings.

Venezuelan Maldonado hopes last Sunday was indeed the start of a Williams resurgence.

He said this weekend in Malaysia “should be interesting”.

“McLaren and Red Bull look strong, but we are not far away,” he is quoted by Finland’s Turun Sanomat.

“We were very close to (Red Bull’s) Mark Webber in the first and second stints,” said Maldonado.

“I think we are faster than Ferrari, Sauber and Force India,” he added.

Maldonado’s last-lap crash in Australia cost Williams a full ten points — double the team’s tally of the entire 2011 season.

“We need points in the future,” he acknowledged, “but we are also now more relaxed now.”

 Kimi Raikkonen is still up to the task of performing at his best in formula one.
That is the claim of Pedro de la Rosa, who in 2006 was the famous Finn’s race teammate at McLaren just before Raikkonen – now 32 – switched to Ferrari and won the world championship.

The so-called ‘iceman’ has been out of F1 for two years and on his comeback in Australia last week dropped the ball with a miserable qualifying performance.

It has emerged Raikkonen came into the pits to change the tint of his helmet visor, and could not get back out for a crucial final qualifying run.

According to Helsingin Sanomat newspaper, Raikkonen described the incident as “a little f*ck up”, and a day later had to be reminded on the radio about the meaning of blue flags.

De la Rosa, however – who was a mere spectator in Melbourne after failing to qualify with HRT – said Sunday in Australia was “a fantastic race performance by Kimi”.

“Kimi is a phenomenal talent and definitely one of the best drivers I have ever seen,” the Spaniard is quoted by another Finnish newspaper, Turun Sanomat.

“Kimi and his team (Lotus) look really competitive. My guess is that they will be the biggest surprise of the season,” added de la Rosa.

Kimi Raikkonen’s managers have revealed they only now take a back seat in the career of the 2007 world champion.
Britons David and Steve Robertson have guided the famous Finn throughout his motor racing career.

But Steve told Finland’s Turun Sanomat that they only intervene now when the 32-year-old driver requests it — such as when he needed to negotiate last winter with Williams and his ultimate 2012 employer, Lotus.

“We came to the end of the road really in late 2009,” he said.

That is when Ferrari bought out the rest of Raikkonen’s contract, and he headed to world rally.

“We can’t honestly say that we are real rally fans — it’s alien to us, while we know F1 through and through.

“When Kimi wanted to go back to F1, he turned to us for help with the agreement. After a few months Kimi got what he wanted.”

Robertson, however, explained that the father-son duo are no longer involved in the “day to day” running of Raikkonen’s career.

“I have known Kimi for 11, 12 years, and he has become really close to us. When he asks for help, he knows that we are always ready to give it,” he continued.

“I was delighted when he wanted to come back where he really belongs (in F1),” said Robertson. “There is so much nonsense about Kimi’s problems with motivation.

“The truth is that he wanted to come back for one reason only — because he is super-motivated to race in F1 again.

“By taking Kimi, it shows the (Lotus) team’s desire to succeed. I think Kimi and Romain Grosjean are a good combination.

“By changing the drivers the team has showed that it was not satisfied with the level of last year and that they want to come back to being among the big teams,” he concluded.

Lotus has overcome a serious chassis flaw to lead the field as the final pre-season test began at Barcelona.
The former Renault team had to sit out last week’s running at the Circuit de Catalunya as designers grappled to fix a problem with the front suspension mounting.

“The mounting of the suspension is now the strongest part of the car,” an unnamed team member is quoted by SID news agency.

At the end of his return to action on Thursday, Romain Grosjean was quoted by France’s Auto Plus: “It (the E20) feels the same, there’s not much difference really.”

Indeed, the revised car is 1 kilogram heavier, but the biggest issue is the four lost days of testing, which after an FIA clarification cannot now be made up.

“To miss four days is not ideal as suddenly we have to try to work twice as hard to catch up,” continued Grosjean.

“It’s true that it’s not great, but it’s not as problematic as it might have been.”

He is referring to the fact that, so far, the Lotus appears intrinsically fast.

Asked if the E20 felt as good around Barcelona’s demanding layout as it had at Jerez last month, the reigning GP champion enthused: “Yes, exactly the same.

“You can trust the car, push it, play with it.

“You can attack, and if you attack too much, you know what will happen — if you have understeer, you know that by attacking less, you’ll have less understeer.

“On this aspect, the car is very good.”

1982 world champion Keke Rosberg told the Finnish broadcaster MTV3 that while the Lotus looks as good in Barcelona as it had at Jerez, it is still not clear if it will be able to compete against F1′s regular top teams.

Auto Motor und Sport quotes Grosjean as saying: “I think there are a couple of teams ahead of us — Red Bull and McLaren look very strong.

“Behind them, it’s a lot closer than it was before.”

However, amid F1′s now extremely limited track testing regime, there is no ignoring the four lost days of running.

Asked if he is ready for 2012, Grosjean said according to Finland’s Turun Sanomat: “I have to be.

“Of course, the more time you have with your car, the better you feel. However, it is what it is.

“We have this four days prior to Melbourne and that’s better than nothing,” he added.

* Caterham had to replace Heikki Kovalainen with his teammate Vitaly Petrov on Thursday, as the Finn recovered at his nearby hotel with food poisoning.

 Most leading specialist publications see Red Bull as the continuing pacesetter in formula one.
In their recent analysis, outlets including Auto Motor und Sport (Germany), La Gazzetta dello Sport (Italy) and Autosport (Britain) believe world champion Sebastian Vettel again resides the best car ahead of the 2012 season.

“They still have an advantage, but it’s smaller,” agreed Jenson Button, according to Brazil’s O Estado de S.Paulo.

His boss Martin Whitmarsh added: “Red Bull has a solid, fast car, better than us in slow corners, but we’re better in the fast ones.”

Switzerland’s Sonntagsblick, however, sees McLaren actually ahead of the energy drink-owned team, with Mercedes in third place and Force India a surprise fourth.

“Red Bull is faster (than Mercedes),” said the German marque’s boss Ross Brawn, “and clearly a little more than we had hoped for,” he told Auto Motor und Sport.

The international publications said Lotus, amid their chassis flaw problems, rank anywhere between third (Auto Motor und Sport) and eighth (Blick).

According to the same press, Ferrari is in trouble, ranking no higher than fifth in the lists of the aforementioned publications — and the authoritative Auto Motor und Sport predicting nothing short of a disastrous season for the fabled Italian team.

Felipe Massa is quoted by Spanish reporters as saying Barcelona was “a little more positive” than the Jerez test recently, and he was asked to rank the development of the new F2012 car out of ten.

“Probably more than five. There is still much to do, but now we are closer than we were,” said the Brazilian.

As for whether the car is a race winner, Massa added: “I hope so, but it’s very difficult to say anything in testing,” he is quoted by Finland’s Turun Sanomat.

Indeed, Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi ended last week’s Barcelona test with the quickest time, but Blick’s veteran correspondent Roger Benoit warned against taking that too seriously.

“When with the same tyres at the same time, (Mercedes’ Nico) Rosberg was a second faster per lap than Sauber’s Japanese,” he said.

“In testing, the truth is seldom revealed — if the teams used lie detectors, they would all be laying exploded around us.”

According to Britain’s Sun newspaper, Kobayashi confirmed: “I don’t think McLaren and Red Bull are slow.

“We don’t really wish for wins or podiums. For us this is a bit too far away.”

Instead, the midfield battle looks extremely tight, with Brazilian correspondent Livio Oricchio surmising that Sauber as well as Force India, Toro Rosso and Williams are all in there.

“It will be race to race,” Toro Rosso’s Giorgio Ascanelli told the Italian press. “From what we’ve seen so far, this fight will be amazing.”

And Oricchio concluded: “As for HRT and Marussia, who have not even presented their 2012 cars, they undoubtedly have capable people, but also almost as many difficulties.”

Heikki Kovalainen insists he has “no concerns” despite having to start work with a new teammate less than a month before the 2012 season.

In 2010 and 2011, and since the formation of the former Lotus team, Kovalainen has shared the green garage with fellow grand prix winner Jarno Trulli.

Now, Caterham has replaced the Italian veteran with the much less experienced Vitaly Petrov, who has moved his Russian backing from Lotus (formerly Renault).

“I got along well with Jarno, but a new teammate doesn’t change my life in any way,” Kovalainen insisted to Finland’s Turun Sanomat newspaper.

“I have met with Vitaly here in Barcelona and I don’t have any concerns. He is definitely a strong competitor but I always give 110 per cent to beat my teammate.

“I don’t underestimate anyone,” he added.

Kovalainen admitted that Petrov might have to adjust to the fact that Caterham is smaller than Lotus, and the car not as competitive.

“Of course he has to get used to the team,” he said, “and if he has any questions, I’m available.

“But Vitaly is a professional driver and in F1 it is expected that the driver is able to start tackling the programme right away.”

Mercedes got its Barcelona test off to an early start on Sunday.
At the same time, the rest of the F1 world was only setting up at the Circuit de Catalunya ahead of Tuesday’s kick-off for the second of three pre-Melbourne group tests.

Mercedes, however, trod a different path recently by keeping its 2012 car under development at its Brackley factory while main rivals including Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren got their test campaigns up and running.

Again running Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg this year, Mercedes took its old car to Jerez and then sat out the last of the four days of testing.

Therefore allowed to make up the day in Barcelona on Sunday, and although details and laptimes are scant, it has emerged that both Schumacher and Rosberg ran the new stepped-nose W03 and completed more than a race distance.

“Michael and Nico’s first impressions are positive,” Mercedes’ Norbert Haug told Bild newspaper.

Also in action at the weekend was Williams, whose test driver Valtteri Bottas ran the new FW34 for an aerodynamic test at the Idiada facility in Spain.

“I am glad I got some time to get used to the car before my test date in Barcelona,” he is quoted by Finland’s Turun Sanomat.

Lotus team owner Gerard Lopez insists he is delighted with Kimi Raikkonen, despite earlier negotiations to secure the Finn’s services having foundered.
After a two year break to drive rallies and in Nascar, the 2007 world champion is back in formula one this year with the former Renault team.

“We had some contact with Kimi in 2010,” revealed Lopez, according to Finland’s Turun Sanomat newspaper.

Reports in 2010 linked Raikkonen with the Enstone based team, but the talks apparently soured after becoming public knowledge.

“I think (in 2010) he was still enjoying the challenge of rallying, giving the impression that he wanted to do it and F1 at the same time,” said Lopez.

He also hinted that 32-year-old Raikkonen considered money as a crucial element in the 2010 talks.

“This time everything was different,” he said. “I can assure you that Kimi came back because he wanted to race and that money was a side issue.”

Reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel, meanwhile, joked on Thursday when he was asked if he had seen his friend Raikkonen at Jerez after the Finn’s two days of running.

“I haven’t. I think he went straight to the bar,” Vettel laughed to the MTV3 broadcaster.